Tag: work

As many of you know, I used to live in Chester. Chester is a beautiful city in the North West, and it’s the first place I lived entirely on my own without my family or any of the people that I grew up with all of my life. I lived in a tiny room in a old fashioned block of flats, and my friends lived directly across the road. Things like not being able to drive weren’t an issue as shops were a ten minute walk away, and as I lived on campus, it was literally a two minute walk to lectures. For that year, my friends became like a family to me. I think that because of that, Chester always feels like home to me in a way that I’m not always convinced Manchester does.

Although I class myself as living in Manchester, where I actually live is Sale, a small town in the suburbs which is technically in Cheshire. Where I live is very leafy and green, and it does feel more like home to me now than it did a year ago. It helps that Rich is here and that my family aren’t too far away, and I do feel as if I’m putting down more roots now that I have a part time job in the city. But then the other day, I caught the train down to Chester for a night out with some of my friends who live there. And I got that feeling as I were going home, as if I still lived there.

Although I’ve accepted that Manchester is my current home, and I’m happy with living there, I guess a part of me will always love Chester. It has beautiful sunsets, it’s where I met my boyfriend, and it’s somewhere that for a short while really made me happy. What I’ve got to remember is that life goes on, and that Manchester is somewhere that opens up a wealth of opportunities in a way that Chester didn’t. I have a lovely flat with Rich, I get to live the cosmopolitan city lifestyle, and I’m closer to my family and hometown.

I think I need to remember that whenever I do travel down to Chester for uni, which I currently do three times a week, although Chester is no longer my home, it’s still there for me when I want it. It was a stepping stone into my current life, and in the same way that my memories are always within reach, so is my favourite city.

As many of you know, I recently decided I wanted to start a bit of a blogging series with the phrase ‘Any job is a real job’ in mind. I wanted to raise awareness of the different industries out there, and I asked for all of my readers help. I feel really lucky that some of you responded.If you missed my previous articles about this, then click here.

First up is Cameron, from over at Cameron D Hamilton. He writes a great blog with an emphasis on poetry and self reflection, and I really love his work, so I was very pleased when he contacted me to tell me about his job as aSenior Social Media Servicing Advisor:

So, let’s begin with a few basic facts. My name is Cameron, I’m 29 and I work in corporate Social Media for a major UK bank. I’ve been in my current position for over a year.

Explain your job role (title, daily duties etc)

At this time I hold the title of Senior Social Media Servicing Advisor. The job itself consists of moderating several social media and website channels for the bank. My department moderates four Twitter handles, two Facebook accounts, the website ‘live webchat’ service and two customer enquiry email services. I came into the department to handle Social Media so I tend to focus my attention on the Twitter and Facebook content. It’s more a preference for me, it actually works out well with our team dynamic as some of my colleagues prefer the more formal nature of the email channels.

On a normal day I’ll spend my time responding to enquiries received and also post attention grabbing content, over the Twitter channel specifically, in order to grow the brand and attract attention. As a team we’re also tasked with monitoring public relations through Social Media, logging and reporting positive and negative reports of the bank. As a department we have little power to effect change the way the bank presents itself, essentially we’re information gathering. It can get a bit frustrating when the same criticisms come up and nothing is done but I’m sure there must be a good reason, or at least I hope. The vast majority of the time is spent moderating the channels making sure that all messages received are responded to, make sure we can avoid potential PR issues and make sure customers are protected.

(A funny story on making sure our customers as kept safe over social media. I once had to deal with a customer of the bank who was a financial dominatrix and was posting her bank details over Twitter in order to get tributes from her admirers. Her profile was certainly NSFW. I got in touch with our information security team and they got a Fraud officer to get in touch. We got told she was warned the following day but clearly didn’t listen as a few weeks later she done the exact same thing. You can’t help everyone!)

More than any other department we liaise with several different areas of the business on a daily basis, sometimes it can be simply feeding back praise, looking for more in depth info or a certain subject (mortgages, urgh) or getting complaints handled. This is quite common as you can imagine, everyone love to moan over Twitter and we try to help. Often it’s really easy people are being lazy wont visit the bank or call in, ‘help us to help you’ doesn’t enter into their minds. Sometimes it take a little more to handle but it’s our job monitoring Social Media to make sure that voice gets heard and helped.

As a senior advisor I also research and create reports for the leadership team of the bank. The most frequent is a weekly feedback presentation that is made for the weekly leadership meeting. Takes about three to four hours and I usually do it if I’m working on a Sunday, it’s monotonous but I quite like it.

Also due to the main office site being a contact centre the team has been lumbered with some irritating telephone lines. These are low call volume, maybe four calls over a shift max. In addition to this in order to keep product knowledge fresh there are weeks where I will take general customer service phone calls or work the Internet Banking Helpdesk while another member of the team assumes moderation duties on Social Media. It’s you’re standard shift rotation deal.

How did you got into your job? (e.g qualifications, experience etc)

I’m a Media graduate, I spent five years studying through various college courses and university. I went from wanting to work in film production, with an eye to direct, but found that I enjoyed writing more. I put a lot of that down to my social anxiety, being able to create a barrier means I can work more effectively. Its why I like working in Social Media.

The academics didn’t get me exactly where I wanted to go and I drifted through mostly Customer Service positions while trying to write. Before I took my current position I was working as a general Customer Service Rep in the same bank at the same centre. Due to my qualifications, my vast experience from working in the bank for so long and my eccentric passion the job was mine.

At the time I applied I was leaving the company, I had reached my glass ceiling and had been applying for writing and Social Media vacancies so when one came up from my current employer it just made sense. The company thought so too.

What do you like about your job?

I like the ability to write and be creative. That’s what sold me on the job, to try and engage with customers differently than I had been over phone calls.

Using my experiences as a writer to give some personality to the Social Media accounts, show we care, we want to help but that we’re real.

I really like the people in my team, it’s a great group of personalities and you need that in Social Media. Of course I win the award for most eccentric but I set a very high bar.

Honestly it’s an easy job. With the knowledge I gained working telephone customer service the job of moderating is ridiculously easy. That lack of stress makes my life a lot easier with all the other stresses I have

The Social Media team itself is very young, its only in its second year. I love being able to shape the voice and make a mark on the landscape. Not to denigrate my colleagues but you can tell the difference in language and passion when I’ve sent a message compared to someone else. It’s a great feeling to see that your voice is the one that people like.

What do you hate about your job?

The pay (hahahaha!!!) Serious though, its horrific.

The politics of the office are very annoying, as a contact centre the focus is on phone calls so my team gets treated horribly as if it’s our fault that calls are queuing because we’re not on the phone. My employer doesn’t know how to handle digital operations and doesn’t understand the job we do. This means arguments with management figures trying to assert authority when they have none and acting like children when they don’t get their way.

I don’t drive so the commute is pretty bad at times. I take three buses and as much as it gives me time to listen to my favourite podcasts it does give me a little less free time.

Due to working in the banking industry, it’s a secure paperless environment which is murder or a writer who likes to have a note pad if they’re inspired by something…or maybe just wants to colour in on a slow day.

To be honest the job is great. It’s the office I hate. If I could do the same job somewhere else I’d be a lot happier. I think if there’s any lesson I could impart it’s don’t give up on something you want to do because the people you work for are idiots.

Where do you want to be in five years time?

There’s two answers to this.

Answer one is writing professionally, taking what I do on WordPress and making money off my words. I want to write like a lot of people here so If I can I’d like to get published and make my living from literature

Answer two is Social Media Project Management. I’m not keen on actually managing staff, its just not interesting, I want to create and run projects. Move out of the moderation and more into the marketing the brand growth. I do a little of this right now but I really want to advance into building content to get people talking and make the best use of Social Media. It won’t be with my current employer, I have way too many issues with them and their ineptitude in the digital world. I find this hard to answer because I’ve never been one for planning ahead. Probably why I’m so far behind.

I want to say a big thank you to Cameron for this, as I found it really interesting. I’m looking to go into a similar career myself, so it was great to get an in depth view of what to expect. Does anyone else work in this industry? What do you think? Or do any of you want to go into this industry too?

One thing I hate more than anything is when people don’t refer to jobs in the retail and hospitality sector as ‘real jobs’. As I’ve said in my last few posts, I’ve recently started working part time at a clothing store. Since I’ve started working there, I’ve had quite a few people telling me that it’s not a ‘proper’ job. Now I understand that when they say that, they’re not intentionally being offensive. Maybe it’s because it’s not full time, or because it’s not a job that I’ve attained through my degree. But in my opinion, it IS offensive. Some of the people I work with are in their forties, their fifties, and to them their job is their ‘real’ job. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

A lot of the people who’ve said that my job is not a ‘proper’ job are people my own age. What they don’t seem to remember is that for their parents’ generation, getting a degree was not the norm. A lot of their parents work at places such as a clothing store, and they don’t get told that they don’t have ‘real’ jobs. So why do I? Even now, not everybody goes to university. I know lots of people who’ve gone through apprenticeship schemes, or have gone into a practical vocation, and sometimes I envy them. They’re the people with their own money, they’re buying their own houses, and they own their own car. Meanwhile, yes I’ve been studying at university, but I don’t have any of those things.

I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that any job is a ‘proper’ job. When I do have my degree, I probably will still be working at somewhere like a clothing store. The job market today is fierce, and I’m just grateful to have any job at all. Although I know personally that this job is not something I want to do for the rest of my life, I’m grateful for the income that it’s bringing to me, and that it’s enhancing my knowledge of what it is like in the working world. So try to keep in mind that any job is a job. And I’d rather be working hard then being the type of student who has to rely on their parent’s money. But that’s just my opinion. What’s yours?

I wrote a post on my bucket list last week that you guys seemed to really enjoy. Therefore, I thought I’d try doing a reverse bucket list. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s basically a list of things I have achieved rather than things I haven’t achieved. I hope you guys enjoy this 🙂

Swam in the ocean, passed college with at least three B’s, gone to university, moved out of my parent’s house, started to drink more water, learnt how to cook, started my first internship, got my first job, went on a plane for the first time, visited Italy, fell in love, stayed out all night, went through my first breakup, learnt how to stand on my own two feet, travelled alone, started driving lessons, went on a gondola ride in Venice, climbed right to the top of the Eiffel Tower, visited the castle where Harry Potter was filmed, visited Harry Potter studios, went to a musical, went to a ballet, volunteered with a non profit organisation, visited the National History museum, became a tourist in my own town, hosted a dinner party, sang in a taxi, watched a sunset abroad, went to two different festivals, saw Juliet’s balcony in Verona, started a blog, had a LOTR movie marathon, got a piercing, dyed my hair a completely different colour, worked at an airport, moved twice, read over 100 novels, conquered my fear and rode the tallest rollercoaster in the UK, donated to charity.